Wednesday, 24 June 2015

Me again! We’ve officially completed 100 farm visits from
our randomly generated list, and perhaps now would be a good time to describe
what it is that we actually do on these shambas…

First of all of course we have to
get permission from the farmer to use their information in our project. Krista
and I don’t really take part in this step because it’s usually in Swahili and,
therefore, way over our heads. Once they’ve agreed to participate in the study
we get to work. Most often the talking is again done by either Dennis or Joan,
but sometimes one of the farmers will speak enough English that Krista or I can
do the survey with guidance (and assistance!) from one of the others. When that
is the case we ask a series of questions about the animals, their health, feed,
living situation etc, and then we give the farmers a handout and talk to them
about several topics related to animal husbandry. Otherwise we focus entirely
on the cows and youngstock. We take their height and estimate their weight
using the girth of their ribcages, then we give them a body condition score and
thorough physical exam. If they’re zero-grazed cows, meaning they don’t leave
the stall area, we take a blood sample to be used for lab tests later, and we
measure and assess the stalls. For pregnant heifers and all cows, we do a
rectal palpation to assess ovary status or confirm pregnancy, and we give
hormone injections where required. For milking cows we also do a California
Mastitis Test and treat any quarters that are infected. Finally, if deworming
is needed we either do it for them or leave them with some dewormer to use at
the appropriate time. Usually the whole process goes very smoothly, and we can
be in and out of a farm in an hour, but sometimes there are more animals, the
questionnaire takes a while, or the animals aren’t as cooperative as they could
be.

For example, the other day at our
last call of the afternoon, we were all very pleased to see that the farmer had
only one cow and one heifer. They weren’t zero-grazed (so no blood and no stall
measurements) but the woman had them corralled in a small pen. We all heaved sighs
of relief that our last farm would be quick and easy, and Joan and I climbed
into the pen with the halter to restrain the cow while Krista took notes and
Dennis did the survey with the farmer. The cow really was quick and easy, she
was fairly quiet and didn’t fight the halter at all, and while she did dance
around a bit during the rectal palpation, we’re getting pretty used to keeping
up. The heifer, on the other hand, was the craziest specimen of milk producing
bovine I think I’ve ever seen! She must have been part Zebu and part wildcat.

We tried being nice, we tried being sneaky, we tried chasing her around
the 20’ by 20’ pen for a quarter of an hour, we tried lassoing her, we tried to
corner her, we even had Krista, and Dennis in the pen to help. I honestly don’t
know how we finally caught her, but she ended up with a rope around her neck
dragging Joan around the enclosure until we got her tied to a post. Usually at
this point the animal will calm down, once it realizes fighting won’t free it.
Not this girl. She spun and kicked, and twisted till she nearly did herself an
injury. The only information we were able to get was an approximation of her
height and weight and a body condition score based on what we could see from a
safe distance. And then, for reasons I will never understand, we decided that
it would be a good idea to follow protocol and use an oral dewormer on her. In
hindsight I think using the pour-on variety that we usually reserve for
lactating cows would have been a better idea, but I’m sure this way was much
more exciting!

Unfortunately, our Valbazen syringe
only holds 6mL (normally just treating young cattle) and she needed about 14,
so Joan had to be quick on the refill once Dennis, the farm owner, and I had
the heifer restrained. Dennis lunged for the head and got her in a head lock
while the farmer lady grabbed the halter rope and held on for dear life. I
grabbed a hind leg to keep her from jumping. Or at least that was the theory,
and on most animals that would’ve been enough, but Joan only had 12mL or so
into her before chaos broke loose. I swear I’ve never seen a cow do a flip
before that day, but that is exactly what she did. She kicked out with both
back legs and landed on her back, neatly breaking the holds of all three
restraint personelle and giving Dennis a good kick in both shins at the same
time. But she got herself really tangled in the rope as she did it so we had to
let her go to stop her from hurting herself…She never did get the last 2mLs of
Valbazen, but we just couldn’t compete with a somersaulting cow!

Time flies here. I can’t believe I’ve been in Africa nearly
a month already. The most obvious sign of time passing is the build-up of dust.
While it was beautiful and lush and green when we first arrived, it hasn’t
rained here in weeks and everything now has a thick layer of dust obscuring the
original colours. Even us!

We’ve
settled into a routine very well by now, with minor interruptions and
alterations every day. Generally, we leave the house around 8 and pick up our
guide who takes us to farms on our list. Vincent always makes us a delicious
breakfast (all his meals are delicious, but I have to say, his chapattis are my
favourite!) that holds us over till we find time to eat our lunch between
farms. Since the second week we’ve been very careful to stow our sandwiches
under the bench, because they mysteriously disappeared one day and we went 12
hours with only a cup of tea from one of the farms! Fortunately the farmers are
very generous, so we usually don’t go hungry whether we bring lunch or not.

By about 5 pm, we’ve usually
visited 6 farms and we’ve been bounced around in the back of the gypsy enough
to make our heads spin, so we call it a day and head for home. Vincent usually
has tea ready and waiting but we all feel (and, undoubtedly, look) too filthy
to want to put anything in our mouths right away, so we go out for a walk
before it gets too dark. Well, Dennis and I walk, the other 2 jog to keep up!
Then we spend our evening eating wonderful local meals cooked by our wonderful
chef, doing data entry, separating blood samples, and playing cards. Crazy 8s
is the current favourite, although Go Fish is a close second.

This week we’ve had several unexpected, but entertaining, deviations from
our routine.

1. The gypsy, which we have
dubbed Goliath, has been steadily deteriorating in health ever since John left.
First the restraining chain on the door broke so it swings wildly whenever it’s
opened. That’s not such a big deal except that we’re worried it might snap the
whole door off if we’re not very very careful. We also can’t open the passenger
side door from the inside anymore, which isn’t such a big deal since the window
doesn’t close anyway. As well, the back door no longer closes properly, so
we’ve jury rigged a system that consists of a piece of cord tied around the leg
of the back seat, and we tie the door shut with a quick release knot around the
door handle. And finally, yesterday the battery died. I know that doesn’t sound
like that big of a deal, we do have jumper cables after all, but the real
problem was that we couldn’t figure out how to open the hood. It took 6 of us
over an hour to do it… We even tried pushing the car down the hill to try and
start it that way, but once we found the button in the glove compartment we got
everything sorted out in no time! And besides, it’s cars like Goliath that make
driving memorable!

2. In a totally unrelated change of routine, yesterday (Friday) we quit
work early to go to Meru Gakoromone Market with Geoffrey, the chairman of Naari
Dairy. It was incredible in so many ways! First of all, the volume of traffic
was unbelievable, people everywhere, but everyone knew what they were doing and
even though to an outsider it looked like total chaos, nobody got in anyone
else’s way and everything ran very smoothly. And the fruit!!! Geoffrey took us
to the fruit section I guess, because every square inch of ground was covered
in piles of exotic fruit! There were literally mountains of watermelons,
papayas, mangoes, oranges, nectarines, bananas, cassava, avocado, arrow root…
Jaw dropping. We filled the back of Geoffrey’s car with our purchases, and as
if having all of that available wasn’t good enough, we got it for about $10. I
was in heaven!

3. Geoffrey
came over for dinner last night as well. It was very nice to have company for a
change, and he’s a very entertaining man so we had a good time. He calls me
Kendi now, because Joan and Dennis decided that was my Kenyan name and they
told him. He seemed to enjoy the idea of giving me and Krista new names. J He also found out that
we’d seen camels in the Naari market the other day, so he took us to the Meru
Agricultural show today. It was very interesting. There were booths and tents
representing all sorts of schools, agencies, businesses, etc. There was even a
pavilion from a prison that was filled with beautiful woodworking and
paintings. And of course there were camels. We even got to ride one! It was an
interesting feeling, much much higher than I would’ve expected, and not nearly
as ungainly feeling as camels look! But of course, if people hadn’t been
looking at us while we were walking around, they were all watching us 10 feet
in the air! Not only that, several people thought it was worthy of pictures and
videos! It was totally worth it though just to say I’ve ridden a camel!

Tomorrow, being Sunday, we’ve agreed to go to
church with Solomon, the vicechair of the dairy. And after that, Geoffrey’s
meeting us to take us to a football game that is somehow related to our
project. I think maybe John donated the jerseys or something. All in all, it
should be a good end to another great week!

Thursday, 18 June 2015

We have almost been here two weeks and I
(Maggie) feel like we have really settled in and are getting into a fun
routine. Our first full week flew by in a blur of construction, tea (‘chai’ in
Swahili), mud, manure, and laughs.

On Monday we started fixing our first
stalls for the welfare project. Most of the cattle here have pens/sheds that
consist of a stall for lying in, a milking stall, an alleyway, and a feeding
area. Last year, the farms were divided into treatment and control groups. The
treatment farms had their stalls fixed and the control groups were given Calliandra seedlings. This tree grows
well in this region and has a very high protein content. When fed in abundance,
Calliandra can be used to supplement
or replace expensive feeds like dairy meal. Though most farms are quite small
and there isn’t much room to grow more crops, Calliandra can be grown in place of the decorative hedges found at
the perimeter of farms. Aesthetically pleasing andfunctional!

This year, we are doing the opposite with the
groups; we are fixing the stalls of the control groups and bringing Calliandra to the treatment groups. On
Monday, our construction skills were put to good use on the first control farm.
The cow on this farm, Meni, has eye problems and is completely blind. Her pen
had no stall and the only area for her to lie down consisted of deep mud and
manure. Within a few hours, we made her a roof-covered, comfortable stall. When
we returned an hour later, we found Meni lying down in her stall and looking so
comfortable! It was pretty incredible to see such instantaneous results and
definitely worth the hard work! It’s also been really satisfying to go to farms
that had their stalls fixed last year and seeing them being well-maintained and
used by the cows.

In addition to the physical exams and
mastitis testing/treating, we interns are getting lots of practice with other
clinical skills. On our second visit to the farms, we treat all the cows and
any cats or dogs on the farm for parasites (mites, fleas, ticks, worms, etc.).
We are also checking the pregnancy status of many cows; this skill is critical
(although perhaps not glamorous!) for any bovine practitioner. In addition to
being good practice for us, it’s also great to be able to tell farmers that
their cow is indeed pregnant, since they are counting on her to make milk
(which requires having a calf).

On Wednesday, we had a break from farm
visits and went to Ithanji primary school, which is a local school that is
twinned with an elementary school in Prince Edward Island through Farmers
Helping Farmers. We had a very successful meeting with the head teacher about the
possibility of us teaching some of the classes later on in the summer. We also
got a tour of the school, which has really benefitted from being twinned with
the PEI school. Every year, Farmers Helping Farmers holds a barbecue in order
to raise funds for a cookhouse for one of their twinned schools, and Ithanji is
one of these schools. The cookhouse allows the school to have a lunch program
for their students, and there was porridge and githiri (maize and beans)
cooking away when we stopped by. The ingredients for the lunch program come
from the school’s farm as well as from donations by parents. In addition to the
cookhouse, the school has received many rainwater tanks, new toilets, a hand-washing
station, doors, and windows from the PEI twinned schools.

Later that day, we also went for a tour of
the Bora Feeds factory; this local company makes feeds for many different
animals, and is one of the main providers of dairy meal in the region. It was
really neat to see the whole process from the raw ingredients (fish meal, wheat
bran, sunflower seed cake, etc.) to the grinding, mixing, and packaging.

We are having a great time working with and
getting to know our Kenyan coworkers Priscilla and Ephraim. In addition to
being our translator and driver, they have also quickly become good friends who
put our construction skills to shame, introduce us to new music, and patiently
answer our never-ending questions. We all had a good laugh one day when Mira
learned (the hard way!) that the Swahili word for hammer, ‘nyundo’, closely
resembles ‘nyondo’, the Kikuyu word for breast!

Working with the farmers has also been
really fun and rewarding. We find them to be very enthusiastic and open to new
ideas. In addition, their generosity is incredible. We have been here less than
two full weeks and have already been served multiple meals (often cooked for
the household and then given to us instead), and commonly sent on our way with
bunches of fresh fruit. Many people, myself included, tend to have a picture in
mind when hearing the word ‘poverty’, of people living in grim conditions,
hungry, and in need of aid. However, working with people who are considered to
live in impoverished conditions and seeing their constant smiles, positive
attitudes, and unselfishness makes you realize that common portrayals of
poverty in the media are not always consistent with real life experiences and
that the face of poverty can vary quite dramatically. Yes, they are
still very poor compared to Canadians, but they are happy because they have
food from their farm, water from nearby sources, and family around them - the
essentials. Their happiness, despite having little money, savings or material
goods, helps us put our lives in Canada into perspective.

Meni was so excited to lie down she
couldn’t even wait for the shavings!

Githiri and porridge cooking in the
cookhouse of Ithanji primary school

Only a vet student could be this happy
about pregnancy checking via rectal palpation!

Tuesday, 9 June 2015

We have all arrived safe and sound
in the town of Mukurweini, where the Veterinarians Without Borders-Canada
Smallholders Dairy Project partners with the Prince Edward Island NGO – Farmers
Helping Farmers (FHF). Mukurweini is located in the Kenyan highlands, about
three hours northwest from Nairobi. The land here is beautiful with its’
rolling hillsides, red earth, and abundant vegetation (picture included as
words cannot do it justice). This year, three student interns are working with
veterinarian and PhD student, Dr. Shauna Richards, on research projects on
dairy cow welfare and nutrition. The student interns include Maggie from the
University of Calgary, and Sarifa, also from the University of Calgary and
myself (Mira) from the University of Saskatchewan. Our first week has been a
great success; we settled into our home for the summer, had a tour of the milk
processing facility, and began to visit farms enrolled in the research
projects.

On our first day in Mukurweini, we
got a tour of the milk processing facility.
The Wakulima Dairy was incredibly impressive, not only due to its
excellent organization, but also with the realization that it came from such
modest beginnings. The Wakulima Self-Help Group Dairy is a cooperative of many
smallholder dairy farmers (farmers having one or two dairy cows) that work
together to process and sell milk. The Wakulima Dairy has grown over the years
through their partnership with FHF and now VWB-Canada. Started in 1990 with 35
farmers selling 100 litres of milk a day, the Wakulima Dairy now has over 6500
farmers selling 38,000 litres of milk a day. Twice everyday, milk is collected
by trucks at collection points throughout Mukurweini where farmers bring small
pails filled with a couple of litres of milk. Milk (maziwa in Swahili – this is
an important word for us here!) is brought to the Wakulima Dairy processing
facility where it is tested for quality, pasteurized, homogenized, packaged and
then shipped to Nairobi. There are approximately 200 employees working at the
dairy facility, and it is a major employer in this area.

The next day, we began to visit
farms that are enrolled in the research study. Our goal is to visit five farms
(shambas in Swahili), per day. Each farm is located on a hillside; the
combination of the steep hills and abundant rainfall in the area can make it
can be quite a challenge to get to the farms without slipping! But luckily,
there have been no big falls yet! Each farm keeps their dairy cow (or two cows)
in a small pen with a roof-covered stall for laying down. Both men and women
take care of cows here, but women are the predominant caretakers. Farmers here
practice zero-grazing, meaning they bring food to their cows instead of grazing
them. This is due to the lack of available grazing land and to reduce the
incidence of diseases spread by ticks. VWB-Canada and FHF has been promoting
Napier grass as a good feed source for cows as it is high in protein. This
grass can be found along most of the roadsides here, where it is planted
specifically in certain plots by farmers, who then cut and carry it to their
cows. Napier grass can grow to heights of over 2 metres, but as it increases
past 1.5 meters, it loses a lot of its nutritional value. This is an important
concept that we are working hard to educate farmers on in order to help them
improve the nutrition of their animals.

At each farm, we do a thorough
physical exam of the cow, and collect important information about the cow’s
environment (e.g. can the cow lie down comfortably? Does the cow have access to
water?). Shauna also conducts an interview with the help of our fabulous
translator, Priscilla, to ask farmers about the health and diet of their cow.
We also attach accelerometers to a leg of each cow. Accelerometers are small
devices that record the position of whatever they are attached to in space; we
can use them to see how much time the cow spends lying down or standing. When
cows are comfortable, they spend more time laying down, which results in
increased milk production. The data we are collecting on the behavior of
individual cows helps us gain insight into how we can improve their
environments to help improve their welfare and productivity.

The longevity of FHF’s working
relationship with the Wakulima and partnership with VWB-Canada has led to
improvements in stall designs, cow welfare, and nutrition. However, there is
still much work to be done. Many of the cows we have seen do not have body
weights that are adequate to support good milk production or pregnancies.
Working with farmers to introduce better feeds, improve stall designs, and encourage
better health management of their dairy cows is vital to improving livelihoods
in this area, where the average household income is less than $1000/year. Even
slight increases in milk production can provide a pathway out of poverty by
allowing families to afford their children’s education, improve their
sanitation facilities, and afford a more nutritional diet for themselves. Of
course, all of this is easier said than done, which is why working with people is key. While it is easy to
tell someone what the right thing to feed is, it is far more effective to work
with them to understand their individual needs and challenges and find
realistic solutions that are sustainable in the long term.

We are looking forward to this
upcoming week! We will be pulling out the hammers, nails, and shovels to help
farmers improve their cows’ stalls as well as continuing on with interviews and
physical exams.

On
a geeky veterinary student note, we have seen some really interesting diseases
that are not common or unheard of in Canada. We went to a farm where a cow had
ulcerative lesions on its mouth, suggestive of Foot and Mouth Disease, which is
very common in this area. The cow was okay, but it was great for us to be able
to see what this disease looks like in real life after having read so much
about it in our studies. And of course
we have been practicing lots of California Mastitis Tests, a cheap and effective
test to determine if cows have subclinical mastitis (an infection of the
udder).